Rocco Palmo, editor of “Whispers in the Loggia,” a Philadelphia-based website covering Catholic Church news, says there are expected to be three-days of events surrounding the funeral rites.

“There will be a day’s laying in state at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, where the cardinal was a professor for many years, and where, until his retirement, he kept an apartment.”

On day two, “There will be a formal transferal of the body to the Cathedral Basilica (of Saints Peter and Paul). There will be a day’s worth of lying in state. On the climatic third day, there will be a Mass.”

Palmo says the climax of three days of events will be the funeral Mass at the cathedral, “With several of the cardinals from the US, from Rome, from probably all around the world, something around 80 to 100 bishops from America and from the Vatican.”

Palmo says the pope generally presides over such events, but travel logistics and security would make a trip to the US difficult. Instead, it’s expected the pope will assign a cardinal from Rome to represent him.

Palmo says Cardinal Foley is to be buried in the crypt beneath the cathedral altar.

“The cardinal’s body will be taken beneath the high altar of the cathedral to what’s called the crypt. And, that’s where there are 48 spots reserved for the bishops and archbishops of Philadelphia. But, in this case, the cardinal, having been a Vatican official, chose to be buried here and chose to be buried with them.”